Stoicism and the present moment: the Stoic view of worry, seen through one map

Stoicism and the present moment have been linked for nearly two thousand years, and Stoic lines about worry are quoted more today than almost any other ancient writing. This post is part of a series in which I look at the essence of different traditions through one map, the Present Attention and Happiness Matrix from my book. Earlier posts looked at Buddhism, the Bhagavad Gita and the Christian teaching on worry; Islam comes next. Stoicism is different from the others: it is a philosophy, not a religion. As before, I am not explaining it; its scholars and modern teachers do that far better. I am describing how three of its central ideas look when I hold them up against the nine positions attention can take.

The short version

• Epictetus taught that some things are up to us and some are not, and that peace comes from putting our effort only where it belongs
• He also taught that people are disturbed not by events but by their judgments about events. On the map, the event is neutral; the judgment is the like or dislike added on top
• Marcus Aurelius wrote that neither the future nor the past can hurt us, only the present, and that the present is small enough to bear
• Through the map, each of these points back to the same place: Present + Neutral (presence)
• Comparing helps understanding. Mixing practices is a different thing, and the book asks readers not to

What is up to us

The Enchiridion, the short handbook of Epictetus's teaching compiled by his student Arrian, opens with a division often called the dichotomy of control. In George Long's old translation: "Of things some are in our power, and others are not." Our own judgments, desires and actions are in our power. Our body, property, reputation and position, in the end, are not. Trouble comes, Epictetus says, from treating what is not ours to control as if it were.

Through the map, I read this as a line between two kinds of thinking about the future. My book draws the same line in its own terms. Functional thinking has a clear purpose, leads to an action and ends when the purpose is done: planning, Future + Neutral (planning), visited briefly. Compulsive thinking goes round and round about outcomes no thought can change: worry, Future + Dislikes (worry). What is up to us is usually an action that can be taken now. What is not up to us is, read this way, usually a future outcome. The longer version of that distinction for everyday life is in how to stop overthinking.

The judgment added to the event

The fifth section of the Enchiridion is probably the most quoted Stoic sentence today: "Men are disturbed not by the things which happen, but by the opinions about the things." Epictetus's own example is death. Death is not terrible, he says; the judgment that death is terrible is the terrible thing.

The Present Attention and Happiness Matrix sorts every moment of attention into one of nine attention states: past, present or future, combined with liking, disliking or neutral.

Which of these does your mind visit most? See your mind score - free.

My book describes the same structure from the inside. When something reaches us through the physical senses, a sound, a sight, a sensation, the first thought is simply registering it: Present + Neutral (presence). Its example is hearing a raised voice. The first thought is just the sound. The second thought is "that person is angry with me", and by then the first thought has already become the past, so the second sits in Past + Dislikes (regret). A third and fourth follow. The event arrives neutral; the charge arrives one thought later.

That is how I read Epictetus's opinion about the thing: the like or dislike that attention adds after the event. My book's centre, Present + Neutral, is described as awareness of what is happening now without the commentary of "I like this" or "I don't like this". Through the map, the Stoic practice of examining a judgment and the book's practice of recognising a position meet at the same moment: the gap between the first thought and the second.

Only the present can hurt you, and it is small

Marcus Aurelius, the Roman emperor whose private notebooks became the Meditations, wrote to himself in book eight: "Do not disturb thyself by thinking of the whole of thy life." Instead, he says, ask of each present difficulty whether it is truly unbearable, and remember that neither the future nor the past pains you, but only the present, which shrinks to very little once you mark its limits. In book three he adds that every person lives only this present time, an indivisible point, and that the rest of life is either past or uncertain.

This is the part of Stoicism that sits closest to the map for me. My book makes a claim that sounds just as strong: all problems exist in the past or the future, and the present moment itself, experienced directly, has no problems. It is careful to add that this is not denial. The practical action a problem needs is a present-moment action, and it is easier to take without the weight of the past and future story. When I read Marcus asking each present difficulty to show itself, I see attention leaving the past and future rows and coming back to the one column where a difficulty can actually be met.

How the comparison looks on the map

Put side by side, the three ideas line up with the matrix this way, in my reading:

1. What is not up to us usually lives in the future row: outcomes, other people's opinions, what might happen.
2. The judgment about things is the Likes or Dislikes charge added to a neutral event, one thought after it arrives.
3. Only the present is the present column, and at its centre, Present + Neutral (presence): the one position with no push and no pull.

The Stoics reached this through reasoning and discipline of judgment. My book reaches it through noticing where attention is. I find it striking that two such different routes describe the same small place.

What this does not do

This post uses the Present Attention and Happiness Matrix, the author's own model from The Return of Attention. It describes experience, not a diagnosis. How the matrix works.

It does not explain Stoicism. Its scholars and teachers are the right guides to it, and the passages here are short quotations from public-domain translations and paraphrases, chosen to show how they look to me through the map.

It does not ask you to stop caring about outcomes or to stop planning. Both the Stoics and my book keep practical action at the centre; what changes is whether the future turns into worry.

If worry has become constant, or low mood has lasted two weeks or more, please talk to a doctor as well. A philosophy is not a substitute for care.

Comparing, not mixing

The preface of my book carries one instruction that applies to every post in this series: "Do not mix this with other practices, physically or mentally and expect results. Allow your own judgment to come at the end of the practice, not before."

Comparing two descriptions of the mind is a way to understand both. Practising two methods at once is something else, and it is not what I am suggesting. If Stoicism is your path, its own writers and teachers are the right guides for it. If you want to try the map, the place to start is the nine attention states, and the practice of returning is described in Present + Neutral.

Common questions

What does Stoicism say about the present moment? On Stoicism and the present moment, the clearest voice is Marcus Aurelius. He wrote that every person lives only in the present, and that neither the past nor the future can hurt us, only the present, which is small enough to bear. Through the map, that points to the present column, and its centre, Present + Neutral.

What is the dichotomy of control? It is Epictetus's division between what is up to us (our own judgments and actions) and what is not (outcomes, reputation, other people). Through the map, what is not up to us usually lives in the future row.

Did Epictetus really say we are disturbed by our judgments, not events? Yes, in section five of the Enchiridion, his student Arrian's handbook of his teaching. His example was death: not terrible in itself, but made terrible by the judgment that it is.

Is Stoicism a religion? No. It is a school of philosophy founded in Athens around 300 BCE, later practised by Roman writers such as Seneca, Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius.

Is this map taken from Stoicism? This series compares how different traditions look through one map. It is not a claim about where any of them come from.